This is a wonderful video, a small lesson in hair love! When I saw that pic on Instagram I thought it was *just* funny, as most of us did. Is hair Envy really an issue, do you wish you had Tracee’s curls or anyone’s curls for that matter?

I think probably the worst subject I ever took in school was Statistics. I hated everything about it, and what made it worse was that no matter what level of education I made it to, I always had that class and it was always mandatory.

Even though I hated stats, as IÂ affectionatelyÂ called it, I understood why it was necessary and I understood the premise behind all the drama ofÂ Standard Deviation. The thing is, the way our brain works is that we need to prove that a phenomenon exists by using variables and techniques to justify it.

So if you ask me, â€˜Is hair important to black women?â€˜, my answer would be a firmÂ yes. And if you asked me to prove it, well for that I would have to go to the stats.

“I do not, however, feel that someone that always wore weaves relaxed, then transitions, big chops, never shows their natural hair during the entire journey unless itâ€™s to do a length check onÂ YouTubeÂ or to get their weave changed, then continues to wear weaves non-stop is truly protective styling. That person is buffered from the full experience of being a natural and want it that way, in my opinion.”Â

I always thought protective styling was protecting your hair in a certain style to preserve it from over manipulation. I never knew that if you did it 90% of the time, then it becomes less protective than if you did it say 40% of the time. – isÂ that what she is really insinuating?

If you wear your hair out all the time, are you more of an experienced natural than the girl who is ACTUALLY natural just like you but wears a weave all the time? What is the full experience of being natural? is it the same for everyone ? How do you really know what she has been through by just looking at her $200.00 ‘Brazilian hair down to there’?

Wigs and Weaves are a Personal Choice …

Here is my opinion, I agree, I think Weaves and wigs are a personal choice, IÂ don’tÂ particularly care for them but if I did IÂ wouldn’tÂ mind trying it a couple times a year. I do not however look at a woman who wears a wig and say ‘I am more natural, or I have more experience than her when it comes to natural hair’ because she chooses to wear a wig all the time.

Weaves and Wigs, Protect the Hair (when done right) ..That’s Just what they do…

I do think wearing a weave or a wig is protective styling there is no way around that. Whether you did it when you were relaxed, transitioning, natural, 50% of the time 90% of the time, or even 100% of the time, it is what it is.

Our society is based so much on symbolism and judgement that sometimes something as practical as wearing a wig becomes some high indication of unnaturalness (depending on how long you do it for).Â Natural hair is a physical thing, caring for natural hair is physical experience.Â How you feel about your natural hair, now that! that is emotional! That means it is not black or white, there is always gray area, and it can easily be debated and judged.

I cannot with good sense look at a woman who wears a weave and automatically assume she hates her hair, it could mean that she loves her hair so much she prefers to preserve it in a way that might not be conventional to the average joe. There is no way to tell unless you invite her out to a red couch somewhere and hand her a glass of wine.

The whole thing about ‘if you do this, then you are that’, or ‘if you do more of this then that means this’ and ‘you are more of that’ … can be so annoying..

Em

Ps – The point of the Nikki Minaj Pic, in case you are wondering :

1. Â Nikki gets alot of flack for showing her natural hair but never her face, and sheÂ predominatelyÂ wears wigs or weaves or something to that effect

2. That Pic was bossy! – Elle Magazine did the damn thing and she looked so much more ‘natural’

3. Â She looks great out of costume and weÂ don’tÂ get to see that often, so.. WTH

in 2009 I purchased a bottle of Kinky Curly Knot Today and last week I just decided on a whim to re-up, you can tell I’mÂ no product junky because it takes me 4 years to re buy a product even when I love it.

I’ve been using it everyday since I bought it and my hair is so moisturized, so light, so smooth and crazy fluffy, even my buns look amazing..

IÂ don’tÂ even have a great pic to show you but this is the end of my day

This was before I fluffed it in the AM

I took the advice of some of the YouTubers who use this product and I diluted it in a spray bottle before braiding my hair, and its perfect!.

My New Boar Bristle Brush

The other thing that has been giving me life ,is my new boar bristle brush, when did we stop using brushes? .. I know brushes are considered ‘curly girl enemy’ but I went to Walmart and for some reason while I was in the hair isle I thought about getting a boar bristle brush that I can use to slick my hair back when I decide to do a wet pony tail type thing. I found one and threw it in the cart and never took it back out.

The other night I decided prior to braiding, to just brush out my hair, IÂ didn’tÂ brush out every kink but I did use my oil mix and just brushed it through my hair. One of the reasons brushes AREÂ recommendedÂ is because they help with spreading oil from the scalp and long the strand.

Obviously your hands can do that, but I am not sure if fingers are as effective as a brush is. MaybeÂ that’sÂ why brushes are still on the market despite what us curly girls might think.

So I brushed my hair in entirety for the first time in years and it felt great, IÂ didn’tÂ even lose alot of hair.

I have the finest hair on this planet, I swear if it were any finer it would literally disintegrate in front of my eyes. For those of us with fine hair strands we are in a constant tug of war with tangles that can only be cut, cross strand breeding and single strand knots that never go away. For me these issues are real,they lead to breakage and loss of length because I constantly have to use the scissors to rectify a sometimes impossible hair situation. For women with a coilier texture but have fine strands sometimes using heat can be a life savor the only problem is because heat gets such a bad rap every time we turn on the blow dryer the guilt is almost like sneaking a strawberry danish atÂ 7 elevenÂ when we just started a new diet. Though it might be hard to admit, its time to ‘come out’ and state emphatically that using heat can be beneficial to our hair care if used properly. I will go first, raising hand, hi my name is Petra and I use heat in my regimen to keep my sanity.

Here are four ways I have used heat to avoid tangling and retain length:

Always Use Heat to Deep Condition

No this is not a trick, I know this is not what we mean by heat styling, but it is important to set the stage and get the proper foundation before we style. For me deep conditioning regularly is a must if I want to maintain my hairs health, but to really make it worth my while I use Â a plastic bag from Walmart, some good DIY conditioner preferable with a little added protein a hooded dryer or steamer Â and twenty to thirty minutes of carved out me time.

Don’t get distracted by theories that encourage us toÂ believeÂ that using heat while deep conditioning is useless or by allowing your conditioner to sit for a while is a complete waste of time. The point is, it feels great, its thirty Â minutes of pampering and your hair will thank you for it.

Use heat to Further Stretch your Wash and Go

Wash and Gos can be a nightmare for me if I allow my hair to just behave the way it naturally wants to. Personally I hate a product filled wash and go, so using gel on every strand to keep my curls defined and in place so that I can avoid tangles is not my idea of a great hair day.

Instead the best wash and go’s involve sectioning the hair and applying products that add moisture, sealing the hair and then a light styler. After the product is applied and my hair is 70 – 80% air dried, I then use blow dryer to stretch the roots and lightly stretch the hair itself, reducing some of the shrinkage that causes tangles and knots. Waiting for my hair to be 70-80% dry helps it to set from the wash and go so that when I use the blow dryer I am not disturbing the texture too much.

Roller Sets and Rod Sets using a Hooded Dryer

I don’t know about you but I am a pretty busy girl, so allowing my hair to air dry for an entire day or two will never happen. I prefer to use perm rods on the ends of my hair when I can because smoothing my ends is the best way I have found to date that reduces single strand knots. With that said, if I do a twist and curl, full perm rod set or roller set I opt to use the hooded dryer which speeds up drying time and helps my hair to remain smooth and tangle free.

Flat Ironing Gives Me a Break from Manipulation

I recently had my hair flat ironed, I mean a bone straight no nonsense flat iron. I wanted a chance to just step away from my usual hair routine for a minute and not to mention it was veryÂ differentÂ look from what I had been used to for the past year. Even though at times I missed my curly hair It felt great to be able to comb my hair out without five strand knots and my hair cross commingling.

For me retaining length also boils down to how best I can avoid my hair breaking because it is so prone to creating knots. I have accepted that my hair strands are naturallyÂ attractedÂ to each other and I will never be able to eliminate every single strand knot I have. I have also accepted that using heat in my regimen is a must because just using other stretching methods does not work every time. There are many ways you can avoid using heat in your hair if that is your choice, but if you do use heat, knowing how to use it for your own benefit and not doing more harm than good can save you alot of heartache

I watched the below video today and I totally get what miss Brittany was saying, as a woman who has changed her hair a thousand times the value she places in it is immaterial I guess or so she thinks… watch:

I think the opposite, in my opinion when you change your hair often and do a bunch of things to it, like color, cut, straighten, wear it in an afro or go bald ..then hair IS in fact important to you and you are notÂ separatingÂ it from your over all self image. Really it is not JUST HAIR as you would have everyoneÂ believe it is that part of you that you can easily manipulate to satisfy the need of ‘changing things up’ or cure that boredom spell or rut you might be in. Â Saying ‘its just hair’ is just another way to justify your decisions on how you wear your hair in hope that the negative energy goes away… the thing is.. youÂ don’tÂ have to do that.

(If I was bald, then not having hair would mean something to me because then in that case I probably wouldn’tÂ be bald …..its the same thing just flipped the other way)

Another perspective is…. even though it appears that some people are over the top with the ‘I am natural hear me roar’ thing for some it is really that huge. For example I posted a video last week of aÂ JamaicanÂ girl playing with her doll Rapunzel and in the clip she was telling her doll that she made sure she married a dude with ‘pretty hair’ but despite that the doll came out with hair ‘like hers’. Â She berated the doll calling her ‘wicked’ and that sheÂ didn’tÂ feel like getting blisters from caring for the dolls hair. She also went further to say that it was ok, because she planned to take her to the hairdresser to have her hair relaxed and a weave put in so she can look like the other girls in the school she was planning to send her to (all the girls at the school were light skinned and had long soft hair, she planned to buy a bottle of bleach too for the dolls skin). This video though considered a joke is so real for a woman like me growing up on an island where ‘kiyah’ Â or Â bad hair was seen as ugly, unacceptable, to be covered and low class…… that’sÂ just real talk.

Was it a problem to me then, no! becauseÂ that’sÂ what I knew as a young girl. As I matured and knew better I knew how wrong andÂ destructiveÂ these cultural facets were to the girls who are subject to it and to the girls being raised as if they are better than another because of their hair and the color of their skin. With that said it can be liberating when you can finally come to terms with your entire image and see your self asÂ beautifulÂ as Brittany stated towards the end.

again it is not ‘just hair’

Hair is – Cultural, apart of our identity and big business

Here’s the thing…. I agree that negativity is oftenÂ transferredÂ because people are often fickle that way. Its the same not only with hair but in business, in the work place and sometimes in our own families. The source of the problem forÂ BrittanyÂ is that some chicks feel they have a God given right to tell you what to do with your own head, andÂ unfortunatelyÂ that is one of the drawbacks of putting yourself out there on YouTubeÂ and other aspects of social media. The response for her and for us all should not be ‘its just hair’ because it means something different for everyone, the answer should be… Its MY hair.

I was reading may daily blogs as usual and I came across an article that identified 5 misconceptions of natural hair, written by Regina Michelle of HelloBeautiful.com.. they were interesting and I just thought I would share my 2 cents. Here goes:

1.Â Wake up feeling free and liberated â€¦
Although having natural hair is liberating and has its perks, sometimes I miss my longer, straight hair that falls to my shoulders and blows in the wind.

My thoughts– I do not know if I woke up liberated, I think I woke up scared not knowing where to start or what to do. It was apparent to me that my hair was very very important because the confusion that ensued really bugged me. Do I miss my longer straighter hair? In my case it was just straighter! I do and I don’t… I always straighten my hair and then I am itching to get back to curly… So what does that mean? (Emily says: I think it means youâ€™re crazy)

2.Â Just wash and go â€¦
Whoever came up with this saying forgot to name a few steps in between. I must wash, condition, apply leave-in conditioner, oil, and styling product, then go.Â And I have to wait 4-6 hours for my hair to air dry completely.

My thoughts: OK so it isn’t just wash and GO, but it kinda is… itâ€™s not the ‘coiner of the phrase’s’ fault that we don’t know what ‘wash’ means… Apparently washing has many many layers.. we just misunderstood. I totally feel you on this one Regina

3.Â Look like a boy â€¦
Iâ€™m relieved this thought proved false for me!Â Although I think that women with pronounced bone structures are gorgeous, Iâ€™m glad that my face is soft and feminine enough to balance a short, somewhat bold cut.

My thoughts: I was not told I looked like a boy, but I was told I looked like a child with my shorter hair and I was asked on numerous occasions, will you ever be using a comb again? …I got rid of the culprit that had those opinions and found a nicer person to hang out with 🙂

My thoughts: I wear contacts but I am more of a studs, pearlsÂ and small hoops kind of girl myself. I like statement earrings but I just like the idea of wearing something small … Maybe that will change soon 🙂 But for now I will always wear what is comfortable for me.

5.Â Walk in light rain without an umbrella â€¦
Sprinkles and sparse showers seem harmless enough, but my hair is moisture sensitive.Â So if my hair is already dry, even a few droplets turn my cute curls and coils into fuzzy frizzies.

My thoughts:I don’t give a rats behind…. I embrace the frizz.. its all good over here ma!